


Infinite potential

by womanroaring



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Apparently it's funny, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 10:32:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3171588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/womanroaring/pseuds/womanroaring
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We were asked over at the Labyfic community on LiveJournal to change one decision that Sarah makes. I decided to start right at the beginning, and change her decision to go home at all when she realised she was going to be home an hour later than she was supposed to be. </p><p>But then I thought of two alternative things she could have done after that, so I wrote two stories -- I configured it as a "choose your own adventure" on LiveJournal but I couldn't work out how to do that here, so I've just made them Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.  </p><p>Anyway, enjoy :)</p><p>Chapter one word count: 1213</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Into the Woods

The clocktower chimed. “Oh no, Merlin! I don't believe it, it's seven o'clock!” 

Sarah went to pick up her skirts to run home… but then changed her mind. Her step-mother was going to be so annoyed that she was home an hour after she and her father were supposed to leave for the show they were going to.

Ugh.

Sarah decided she just couldn’t face it.

She wasn’t going home tonight. She might never go home again.

She looked around, wondering what to do with herself. She was at the local park, which was on the outskirts of a nature preserve she had never been inside. Somehow or other it wasn’t very popular as a visiting spot -- a bit dark and lurky -- and it had never even occurred to her to enter it before. She decided that tonight was the night. 

“Come on, Merlin,” she said, and off they strode, more purposeful than Sarah actually felt. In fact, all she was really feeling was terrible guilt and a gnawing sense of how childish she was being. But then she entered the treeline, and heard the music playing, and everything fell away.

Meanwhile, the barn owl that had been watching her hooted in annoyance. Sarah was supposed to go home, she was out an hour later than usual. What was the girl doing? He had hoped tonight would be the night, the night she spoke the words and he finally had a bargaining chip, an “in”, a way to entice her voluntarily to enter his world and stay there.

Also, those woods she’d just blithely strode off into were dangerous, they were full of places where the veil between the faery and the human worlds was thin. And she was definitely at risk from the wrong sort of attention. She shone like a light in the darkness to his kind. So much fantasy, so much imagination in her. So many words at her disposal.

He flew in after her, and realized she’d already stepped through somewhere, leaving her dog, barking and forlorn, on the other side. He changed into his humanish shape, feeling with his gloved hands for the place she had stepped through and crossing over himself.

Straight into a clearing, in a faery wood full of elves at a revel.

And there she was, his Sarah, his precious thing; under a tree with one of the more boyish of the elf princes.

His Sarah, canoodling.

With an elf prince. 

That _bastard_.

That puny little pointy-eared _bastard_.

After all the work he’d put in -- making sure she got her hands on _The Labyrinth_ , watching her, setting his goblins to listen for the moment when she said the words, all so he could position her so that she would choose to stay in the goblin kingdom -- and some little elvish turd was going to cut his lunch.

He wasn’t sure how long she’d been there -- time moved differently in faery -- but it could not have been more than an hour. That elf sure had worked fast.

His vision tinged with red, he stormed over and pulled Sarah bodily up and away from the elf.

“Sarah, what are you doing?” he growled.

“What are _you_ doing?” she asked, her voice angry and bratty. She wrenched her arm out of his grip, taking a step backwards. “Who do you think you are?”

“My lord goblin king, we are honoured,” the elf said, standing up and bowing. Jareth did not fail to notice he had very subtly moved to stand in between himself and Sarah.

Jareth tried hard to remember what the damned elf’s name was. Aimare? Aemhere?

“I have an interest in this human, princeling. How dare you lay hands on her.”

“Yes, she shines brightly, does she not? But that does not make her yours.”

“Look, Armchair --”

“ _Aemhor,”_ the elf said, his nostrils flaring.

“Yes, that’s it. This one _is_ mine. Look, she holds my token in her hand.”

The elf and the girl both looked down to her copy of _The Labyrinth_.

“My mother gave this to me,” Sarah said flatly.

“And who gave it to her, to give to you? I did.” Jareth said, triumphantly, then turned back to the elf. “This girl is the prospect for my queen, I will not have you besmirching her.”

“Your _queen_?” Sarah said. “What are you talking about? You want -- you want to _marry_ me?”

Jareth smiled at her. For about a second. Until she opened her mouth again.

“I’ve never even met you before! And you’re _old_!”

Jareth’s mouth actually dropped opened in outrage, his voice lost for a moment. “I’m younger than _him_!” he cried out, pointing at the elf. “He’s got at least 500 years on me!”

Sarah rolled her eyes over, disbelievingly, at the youthful-looking Aemhor, who looked politely amused.

“Do I _look_ 500 years older than him?” He asked her (the cheeky little _shite_ , Jareth thought). Sarah shook her head, turning back to the king.

“Dude, you look old enough to be my _dad_ ,” she said in disgust, drawing closer to the elf. “Or my… oh my god, wait, are you my mum’s _boyfriend_? Jeremy?* What the hell are you _doing_ here?”

“I’m not her boyfriend,” Jareth snapped. “I infiltrated her ridiculous theatre company to get close to _you_. But I am not interested in her. She is dull as charcoal compared to your flames. You are the one that I want, you --”

 _Oh, goddess_ , Jareth thought. _I sound like a crazy person…a desperate, crazy old man…_

And, sure enough --

“I’m _15 years old_ , you paedo _weirdo_!” Sarah said. Then she seemed to come to a decision and she turned to the elf, as she backed away from both of them. “You know what? I’m sorry, but this is just all getting too creepy. I’m going home.”

“Ah. No, my sweet, I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Aemhor said delicately. “Once a human joins the revel, I’m afraid they cannot ever leave.”

“Oh yes, she can, Armhair,” Jareth said, grabbing Sarah’s arm. “If I’m not having her, you certainly won’t be. Come Sarah,” Jareth said, frogmarching the child away and back into the human world.

Once they were back in the park and the king seemed to relax, Sarah wrenched her arm out of his grip.

They looked at each other for a moment, each proud and slightly outraged, and then Jareth’s shoulders slumped. His stupid brother-stealing plan was in ruins, and good riddance to it. It wasn’t the bit that was bothering him most.

“Old enough to be your dad, huh?”

“Yes,” Sarah said firmly. Merlin came bounding up at that point and started jumping all over Sarah. It had started to rain; he was getting mud all over her costume but neither one of them seemed to care.

Jareth found himself wishing he was a dog.

Sarah’s stern expression softened a little as Merlin’s enthusiasm cheered her up. Her voice was gentler when she spoke next.

“So you’re the goblin king, huh?”

Jareth nodded glumly.

“Well, maybe look me up in 20 years, if I’m still single. I might think about it then.  But right now, I’m going _home_.”

And she turned on her heel, and off she went.


	2. I wish the goblins would take me away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarah wishes herself away, instead of Toby.
> 
> Word count: 475

The clocktower chimed. “Oh no, Merlin! I don't believe it, it's seven o'clock!”

Sarah went to pick up her skirts to run home… but then changed her mind. Her step-mother was going to be so annoyed that she was home an hour after she and her father were supposed to leave for the show they were going to.

Ugh.

Sarah decided she just couldn’t face it.

She wasn’t going home tonight. She might never go home again. But what would she do now, instead?

“Oh Merlin. I wish the goblins would come and take me away. Right now.”

Ears twitched that shouldn’t be listening. Except that they were listening. And then they were talking, a cacophony of stupid and stupider.

“She said it!”

“SHE SAID IT?!”

“Said what? Did she say the words? Do we take the baby?”

“Which baby?”

“No baby, idiots. She wished herself away! All the better!”

“Better for what? We take babies!”

“In this case, we take the girl. The king wants the girl.”

And suddenly, right before Sarah’s eyes, a swarm of tiny ugly creatures came upon her, right there in the park, in the twilight, and whisked her away.

She was disoriented for a moment, and then she blinked the haze from her eyes and realised she was in an absolutely cavernous room, with a pit in the middle and strange-looking chair up some stairs at the end. She wondered if it was a throne. And if so, what sort of king sat upon it.

She did not have to wonder for long.

There was a commotion behind her and she turned, in time to see a door blast open in a whirl of wind and glitter.

Her mouth dropped open. “You’re him, aren’t you? You’re the goblin king!”

The man before her just smiled an amused smile.

“I can’t believe it! It’s real, it’s all real!”

“Yes, Sarah.”

“So… what do we do now?”

“Don’t try to run away, child. You wished to be taken; what’s said is said.”

“Who’s trying to run away? I just meant, do I need to drink some potion or something to turn me into a goblin? And hey, where can I get some high-heeled boots like yours? My shoes are way too sensible now that I’m going to be an immortal creature of the night.”

“Don’t… don’t you want to try your hand at getting out of here? I’ll give you 13 hours to solve my labyrinth…”

Jareth sounded confused and disappointed. Sarah looked at him like he was crazy.

“Couldn’t you just… point me to the hairdressers so I can get a cool goblin-y haircut like yours? And will you show me how you did your make up?”

Jareth blinked a few times and then threw her a tube of lipgloss.

“I think we’re going to get along just fine, Sarah.” 

**Author's Note:**

> * Just a sidenote: As some of you may recognise, I was subscribing to Tallulah99’s theory as described here:  
> http://labyrinthnook.tumblr.com/post/73327463882/thats-what-i-figured-an-alternative-explanation  
> as to why Jareth and Jeremy, Sarah’s mum’s co-star, seem to have the same face, for this story. But this isn’t the conclusion I had come to, in case anyone's interested. 
> 
> I’ve always figured that the Labyrinth looked like the stuff in Sarah’s room -- including Jareth having a vague likeness to her mum's boyfriend -- because that’s how that world manifested for her specifically. That's how it looks to her, or maybe even to other people who happen to see it, because of her. 
> 
> Anyway, that's how I have chosen to explain the ambiguity there :)


End file.
